‘Hello?’ A croaky man’s voice answers the phone.

‘Er … hi …? I’m looking for Mrs Farnham,’ I say.

‘Oh – nah she’s not in, sorry love. The shop’s not doing collections for a few months while Mrs Farnham is on maternity leave.’

‘Oh, I see! Is there no one else there that might be able to help?’ I ask, politely.

‘No, love, I just told ya. Shop’s shut while she’s off. Shouldn’t say “off”, should I? Sounds like a holiday.’ He laughs.

‘Right,’ I say.

‘Ring back in a few months, I reckon.’

I groan, and hang up.

The following day, I pick up a takeaway coffee in my favourite little café, Kava in Soho, next to the .dot offices. It’s my usual morning routine before work. I quickly check my emails at the end of the bar. The press releases I receive get more and more bizarre by the day:

• Amal Clooney Gets Bunions, So Now Everyone Wants Them

• Four Steps to Having Skin Like Paul Rudd

• The Best Bacon-Scented Sex Products (Including Lube!)

• Home Remedies to Grow Back Those ‘Barely There’ Nineties Eyebrows

Delete, delete delete.

I have a quick scroll through Facebook while my latte gets frothed. Who are all these people? I don’t recognize any names. A girl who I remember being really fun at school is now married to a boring basic banker. Another friend from university who I vaguely remember as sleeping with the entire football team has now become a nun and has written a painfully long caption to explain her ‘difficult’ exit from the online world. Everything is changing. I scroll past photos of five different toddlers, their faces covered in yoghurt, chocolate mousse and baked beans.

I have a quick cigarette outside on the pavement with my coffee in my hand and lean back to relax for a moment, my old faux-fur turquoise coat touching the brick wall behind me. I take big puffs of my cigarette and inhale loudly through my teeth – going against orders from my dentist who has recently told me off for smoking. An anti-fur fashion campaigner suddenly strides up to me with stickers and a placard. He waggles his finger at me and says I shouldn’t be wearing fur.

‘It’s faux fur actually – from a charity shop in Copenhagen.’ I exhale some smoke and tuck my long black hair behind my ear.

He wafts the smoke away and opens his mouth to begin his unnecessarily worthy spiel. ‘Well, actually—’

‘You’ll find I am quite ethical, as a person,’ I interrupt, tapping my ash on the floor. I know I’m being spiky and defensive, but this is not what I need this morning. I’m going through a break-up for god’s sake. People have no manners.

‘I’m afraid it’s not good enough. Faux fur is made up of synthetic microfibres that never really break down or decompose. Worse than real fur, in some ways. And don’t get me started on sequins.’